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That's not offending here because everyone is either working on a social or a business problem. All this as a part of our curriculum, we study design thinking, problem solving etc. This is a precis I had written on one of the problems I am working on. Posting it here for the good of the world!

Problem: Balancing the Bike Sharing System

We have bike sharing systems everywhere. These systems mainy allow people to rent/share/use bicycles in a defined space. These could be on campusses, work areas, SEZs or even certain areas of a city or a town. Usually there are stations from where the user can pick up a bike to travel to another station where he can drop it. Some of these bike sharing systems are free and some are paid. The major challenge in maintaining such bike sharing systems is to balance them or to make sure every user gets a bike when they need one. However, this challenge can be overcome upto some extent in bike sharing systems that require a payment or authorization from the user. Here, there is some data available on the no of bikes at different stations, who takes it and where they drop them. This data can help create a lot of patterns on bike usage based on weather, locality, person, events etc. Though this doesn’t solve the problem, there’s at least more data that can be used to create a solution.
But in case of Bike sharing systems which are free to use, there’s no data available and extracting this data using sensors can be expensive. In most of these systems basic data like the no of people using this system on a regular basis is also not available. This makes the problem more complicated. This exact problem is seen in the bike sharing system we have on our campus.
The bike sharing system on our campus is not completely balanced. At a point of time. nearly 100 bikes are in use through 5 bike stations. Out of these 5 stations, some always have insuffiecient or no bikes at all and some have too many at certain points of time in a day. The stations being linear makes the solution of finding a bike at a near by station also not feasible. If we can get more data on availability of bikes at stations, patterns can be analyzed based on weather, terrain, schedule etc giving more options to optimize the system may be by restricting the routes, or by setting up more stations or even physically transporting bikes from surplus stations to defecit stations.
What’s the most economical way to solve this problem? Can this problem be solved without collecting bike data?

We’ve all seen superhero movies, especially the ones where hardly anyone knows who actually the superhero is. There’s Batman, Superman etc. Well, that’s just movies and fiction. But, How is it to be a Superhero in real life? Solving problems, helping people, being famous, keeping your identity secret, making a dent in the Universe. The most important part of being a superhero is to stay anonymous, not to reveal your identity, to keep the world curious, to have people talking about you and your work and inspire millions. If you don’t stay anonymous, you’ll still be famous, you’ll be a celebrity. That could be good or bad. You could get into trouble, somebody would sue you for no reason, you might get into a controversies etc. Unlike in movies, making such a huge impact in the real world is not so easy. Keeping the identity secret is even harder. Only a few will be able to make it. Knowingly or unknowingly, they become a superhero for a city or a community or the entire world.

Bangalore, like most other Indian cities has a serious garbage issue. It is not clear if this is because of improper system in place or the mentality of people but the issue has been getting bigger and worse. A lot of people tried to intervene, Citizen organizations, RWAs, NGOs, Politicians, Social Enterprises, everyone. May be their work made an impact but not at the scale of this particular campaign. There was one person who started a movement. He brought a bunch of people together who called themselves ‘The Ugly Indians’. TGI was an anonymous group who started cleaning up the streets of Bangalore. Their philosophy – Kaam chalu mooh bandh. Stop Talking, Start Doing. They would choose a ‘blackspot’ or a garbage dump and fix a cleanup drive on a Saturday or Sunday morning. They would go with their tools, clean up the place and repaint it or re structure it, beautify the place and silently get out of there. Anyone could join this by sending them an email or connecting with them through their site or facebook page. The man behind this movement had a long term plan. He had a very creative, design based approach towards the entire garbage issue. He wanted to make sure that they had a larger impact on the issue.

TUI never wanted media attention unlike politicians or NGOs who would send a pre-event press release and a post event press release for a simple cleanup drive.All they wanted was to get noticed, to inspire, to show that you can make change happen. The solution is not just cleaning up this place. You go clean up a garbage dump, people will throw trash again and the dirty pile of garbage will be back by morning. In fact, most of these ‘blackspots’ are cleaned up by BBMP, the city corporation everyday but people still throw Garbage there. There is a lot of observation, psychology and behavioral study behind the solution. In his book, the Ugly Indian or the ‘Anamik Nagarik’ writes about how Osama’s location in Abottabad was confirmed. Yes, it was the trash that gave him away. The fact the absolutely no trash was coming out of that house made it look more suspicious. If you seriously look into all the small things in a trash can or a dump, you can say where it came from, what kind of a person generated this trash, was he/she in a good mood or not, their family relationships, their bank balances, their phone numbers and bills, what all and what not. Sometimes garbage can come to a dump from as far as 20 kms. It’s mostly not from the same neighborhood. Nobody wants to litter their own place. If they had a little more sense of ownership for their neighborhood or area or on the garbage dump, they would take care of it. If that place was useful for them, even more. Another thing about these blackspots is the location where they’re formed. It’s usually a corner or an empty plot. People throw their trash there because there’s no one or nothing objecting them.

The TUI approach to this problem was to beautify the place, try to provide an alternative arrangement for trashing or urination and make the people feel that they own the place. They started cleaning up or ‘spotfixing’ ‘blackspots’ in Bangalore. The Ugly Indian went on meeting people and giving talks, spreading awareness, inspiring people, explaining their technique. He always emphasized on nGoG – No Garbage on Ground. He started working with NGOs, Politicians and finally with corporate. Politicians worked with him for mileage. Companies worked with him to spend their CSR budget and to engage their employees in team building activities. People working in IT companies came and cleaned up some of the most dirtiest garbage dumps, they worked together, they enjoyed it. He made this entire Garbage Cleaning business look cool. He added the wow factor. People would feel good that they made change happen, they could see change happening in front of their eyes.

The next level was great. His website and facebook posts inspired a few people around the country. They got in touch with him. He traveled around the country and mobilized groups similar to the ones in Bangalore. With him he took the techniques, the same approach to the problem and the same design. That’s the best thing he ever did. He maintained his brand through the colors and shapes and structures used in the beautification or re-structuring work. And soon, his brand was in almost every neighborhood of every major city in India. All these pictures started coming on facebook. People from nooks and corners of the country started following the page. The viral sites picked up the story of an anonymous group of people cleaning the streets. It was just more feed for them but it was mileage for the entire movement.

Then, the BBMP, signed a memorandum with The Ugly Indian to clean up the streets of Bangalore under its ‘Namma Bengaluru, Nanna Koduge’ (NBNK or Our Bangalore, my contribution) drive.. This news was on newspapers, the mayor even tweeted about it but the identity of the person who signed this deal was kept secret. His statements were there on the newspapers but he was anonymous. May be he never wanted publicity, may be he wanted to keep the people curious or may be he just wanted to be a Superhero.

After a few more days, The Ugly Indian himself comes on one of the radio channels in Bangalore and talks about his work. He does not reveal his identity. The world is curious to know who this man is? What has he done before this? How has he inspired others? How did he become this?. But only a few, who have worked with him closely will know. May be some day we’ll have Mr. So and So Institute of Social Development in his name when his identity is revealed or may be it’s never revealed at all. But the way I see him is as a Superhero – A man who had the guts to find a solution for a problem, who worked for the society, who inspired overr a hundred thousand people, who chose to remain anonymous. Respect!

About two years back, when I was in the third year of college, Samsung had conducted a mobile app designing contest in our college. We were put into groups and were asked to come up with our own app idea, design it and build it. We were told that Engineers from Samsung would come and guide us and there would be chances of getting an internship. Samsung was doing this to attract more developers to their Bada platform. It was something new and a great opportunity to learn. We were all curious and excited at the same time. The teams, though a few members were in different classes and had different time tables, met frequently, discussed, planned and presented the Idea. We all submitted the ideas to Samsung. Then the Development Started and didn’t go that well and the entire program was cancelled. We were all sad that we couldn’t complete it but no one of us ever thought how much we learned from this project.

Just today, while searching some old documents, I found the presentation we had made. But now, looking back at things, connecting the dots, I feel it was of great help back then. In the process of just designing and presenting the app, we had learnt a lot of useful stuff. We understood the possibilities, complexities and the limitations of mobile apps on various platforms. We designed the UI, planned an entire app explored ways for development. There was also Business plan and Presentations were involved. It changed the way we looked at the mobile app world. We could understand things in a better way after the program. It was great altogether. May be someday when I want to join a design school, or a business school, these skills would help me.

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